Thanks, Mike, this is super helpful information. I saw the case manufacturer (yet another different company used by several) had started cheaping out, but given the loads on mine, I'm not too worried about Alu vs Cu.
Once I polished the block and installed the 0.3mm shim temps were fine, even under load. Between 15°-20° less, about 30° to 35° in ilde with OPNsense, Linux even less. Under stress in Linux it went up to 50°-60° witch is fine. But I never tested under full load for several hours. I still would prefer a cooper block, I would gladly pay the one additional $.
Single DIMM doesn't bug me; this box is running virtual on 2GB just fine. 8GB's plenty, the trick is finding just one 8GB SO-DIMM. ;P
I think this problem can be managed
The mSATA threw me off a bit too, but I actually grok why - primary customers are moving existing mSATA or spares. Plus cheaper and easier routing than PCIe. They do still provide the 2.5" SATA though, yes?
Yeah, mSATA is a bit ugly. The only drives I can get here are a KINGSTON SSDNow KC600 and TRANSCEND SSD 230S, 250GB is about 10$ or 33% more than a MX500 in 2.5". So I just use a Kingfast mSATA ordered earlier from Aliexpress for a different project. Drive is running fine since january in different machines (got one in my APU2 years ago that's why I ordered the same brand). I think everyone gave up mSATA in favour of m.2 SATA and then m.2 NVME, simply because it's faster. And there are enough PCI Lanes availabe on newer CPUs.
One normal 2.5" SATA connector is available, cable is included. Did not try it out, can't say if the cables are bent a bit too much (had this problem with a Topton unit).